grahamdavies.net

Everyday Carry

30 Jul 2014

For long time now, ever since watching Mary Poppins, or more recently when
watching Jack Bauer in the early seasons of 24, I have wondered what one should
keep in one’s bag on a daily basis. In the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,
Douglas Adams somewhat tongue in cheek espouses the massive usefulness of a
towel and implies that you almost need nothing else as a seasoned
inter-galactic traveller.

It turns out that I am not the only one to wonder such things and many sites
are dedicated to the topic. Some show glorious photos of people’s seemingly
rather exotic collection of gadgets (e.g. everydaycarry), whilst others
offer these gadgets for sale (e.g. edcgear). Tempting as it may be to buy
titanium and ferrocerium fire-starters, I question whether most of this
‘everyday’ carry stuff would actually be used at all in an urban setting let
alone ‘every day’.

By contrast, the list below is a mixture of stuff that I do actually use every
day and things that I might genuinely need in an emergency / rare (but not
extremely unlikely) situation.

Although messenger bags are very trendy (if a bit 5 minutes ago), and old
school leather briefcases are very fancy, you cannot beat the sheer comfort and
practicality of a proper rucksack - preferably not a hideous boxy laptop bag with
crappy straps - but a something that quietly gets on with the job and doesn’t
clash too badly with the suits still required by us non-hipsters. My view is
that you are better off with a more comfortable bag than spending countless
hours and money trying to shed a few grams and compromising on functionality
(an iPad is NOT a sensible substitute for an ultrabook / light laptop - unless
you intend to be almost completely unproductive).